Barack Obama addressed the controversy surrounding taped remarks by Donald Trump on Sunday, criticising what he said was “unbelievable” and “disturbing” rhetoric from the Republican nominee to succeed him.
In remarks from 2005 that were released by the Washington Post on Friday, Trump was heard on a live TV microphone boasting about an attempt to “fuck” a married woman and about how his fame allowed him to make sexual advances on women.
That fame made him able, he told the Access Hollywood host Billy Bush, to “grab them by the pussy”.
Obama was speaking in Chicago, at a fundraiser for the Illinois US Senate candidate Tammy Duckworth. Without saying Trump’s name, he said there was a reason why the Republican presidential candidate had denigrated women, veterans, people with disabilities, Mexicans and others during the 2016 campaign.
“It tells you that he’s insecure enough that he pumps himself up by putting other people down,” Obama said. “Not a character trait that I would advise for somebody in the Oval Office.”
“The unbelievable rhetoric” from Trump was “disturbing”, Obama said, adding, to laughter: “I don’t need to repeat it: there are children in the room.”
Trump apologised for the remarks on Friday night. Subsequently, 16 Republican senators, some of them in close re-election races in which their Democratic opponents have sought to tie them to the controversial presidential candidate, rescinded their support. Some said Trump should drop out of the race, a month before election day, in favour of his running mate, Mike Pence.
Duckworth is running against an incumbent Republican, Mark Kirk, who has never supported Trump for president. On Friday, Kirk said on Twitter: “DJT [Donald J Trump] is a malignant clown – unprepared and unfit to be president of the United States.”
On Saturday, he added: “The party of Lincoln rejects Donald Trump. I stand with the calls for him to drop out.”